Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: --> What Is Validation? Save it man, seriously. You didn't even know half of what you were saying was FALSE! You have a book that gives the wrong information this whole time? Up until a few days ago, you were off on some "THEY HAVE TO REPLY IN 30 days!" Do you give out this WRONG information to all the mortgage people you work with? I'll bet we haven't discovered most of your wrong info yet! Why even mention something that you give away free if you can't give it away to anyone here? Its a fishing tactic, that's all. Fishing for people to sign up. I don't even do this for a living, and I proved that you had no clue about validation! How could you charge someone for misleading info? By the way people, I'm working on my own book, Its free, it has all of the information you need to clean up your credit. It has a binder, its covered in red and it opens to the right instead of the left just to remind you how different I am from the rest....Its FREE! Email me if you are a Nasa Scientist, otherwise you'll have to send me a $75 a month donation to use it!
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: --> What Is Validation? You proved nothing at all except that you knew how to take an FTC opinon letter and construct a trap for the unwary to fall into and then further proved that you know how to spell DUH! Had you had any other motive in mind you would have posted both paragraph I and paragraph II of the letter and pointed out the differences in the wording of the two so your point could be made and you might have instructed someone in something although that was of minimal importance in the first place. Instead you decided to invent a trap which was designed to create the maximum amount of hate and discontent and totally disrupt and hijack the thread and turn it to trash. I do hope you are proud of yourself.
Something else just strikes me as being kind of strange too. Seems to me that a very short time ago Butch said he was leaving because of problems that were going on at the time and then that got fixed so he came back and started in doing some serious posting, mainly in this thread. And then when helpwanted came up with his trap and the bickering started it seems Butch took off and hasn't been back on since that I have seen. So now we can wonder if Butch will be back on again or what. If he don't come back we will all know why.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: --> What Is Validation? How many times are you going to repeat yourself?! You have made your point over and over again. You have turned your disagreement into an ongoing personal attack and it's getting old. For crying out loud, LET IT GO LOUIE!
This is such a great thread, I hate to see it fall to page 2 or 3 purgatory. Does anyone have any suggestions how we might cleanup some of the off topic stuff, leaving the points and counterpoints, AND not offend anyone (censorship), and try and get this posted as an INTRO sticky? Validation is such a HUGE part of credit repair I hate to see this post get lost.
There may be one way at the very least and that would be to contact the moderator and see if he would do that.
I don't mind approaching Kaliban about it, but there was some recent problems with censorship, and before I go off Lone Wolfish, asking him to do something like that, I would like to gather the Cneters voices for him to read and make a decision, before deleting any of the extraneous posts. That is why I brought it up in this thread, so I can (if everyone would like) ask him to take a look at it.
Hello, jlynn: I agree with you that this thread is a valuable one and that validation is a critical topic. As I review Nave's FAQ and hundreds of related threads, however, I can see that there are many other equally critical topics including: credit reports and scores, dealing with bankruptcy, selecting a plan of attack (disputes vs. "Goodwill" vs. paid chargeoff challenges vs. validation, etc.), identity fraud, statute of limitations issues, doing your own credit repair versus paying for the service, and others. It's also clear that not everyone is dealing with the same issues. One reason why we value Nave's FAQ so much is because it pulls together links to so many critical topics in one document, and from there a Creditnet member can navigate to those topics which are most relevant to him or her. For that reason, we won't elevate a single topic above the others. Instead, it makes sense to go with the global glossary definitions which richard612 began, Nave's global FAQ, and PsychDoc's global primer. I do think that this thread would be an appropriate candidate for Nave's FAQ, and I understand that he has been very accomodating with such suggestions. We won't censor or edit the thread regardless. CCN steve
Thanks Steve, I'd be honored to be included in Naves FAQ directory. Thanks to Jlynn too, and others, for the nomination. As we all know John Ashcroft and Co. raised the threat level to Orange, (HIGH). This triggers a great many government initiatives with respect to not only our Military, but all Federal Employees. As I work exclusively with the later my personal schedule has increased dramatically. My time then will be somewhat less aggressive than it has been, although I do plan to continue with this topic. This actually might not be such a bad thing anyway. My next item of discussion was going to be "How to demand validation on a derogatorily listed account which has long ago been paid, and the account CLOSED". The prevailing wisdom of old was that, once an account was paid we lost all our bargaining power and were basically stuck. In as much as one would think validating away a paid account is a natural extension of what we've been talking about, it's not just a validation issue. In fact now we lean very heavily into other areas which are not related to validation, my original purpose for this thread. Today, thanks to the pioneering efforts of Marci, who seems to have initiated the concept, and then Doc who perfected it, as well as the many others who've tested the idea and proved it's phenomenal success, we now have the Nutcase and Goodwill adjustment techniques. As this topic is one of noticeable complexity a different thread may be in order. Doc and others have posted much about these guerilla tactics and you might be better off if I deferred to those more expert than I. But briefly, I was contemplating a philosophical discussion as opposed to one of a "how to" nature. I'd thought that if we explored the psychco-dynamic behind the fact that since the account has been paid your adversary no longer has any desire to argue with you (and in fact is too lazy to do so anyway) would provide a foundation for easier selection as to which of these tactics would be best for you in your situation. I'd planned to demonstrate that this one critical component leaves you anything but powerless in these situations. In fact this might be the easiest to deal with, with some perseverance and patience. Don't worry. This doesn't mean I'm running out of steam. A great General (whose name escapes me at present) once said: "We've only just begun to fight". I do have a lot more to talk about regarding validation like: How to FORCE a reply out of your adversary How to BILL HIM for your wasted time and expect to be paid Whether or not you should ever call or talk to your adversary on the phone and how to isolate those situations where it might actually facilitate a resolution to your advantage I also believe a serious discussion needs to be developed about the various Estoppel Concepts and which ones to use in which situations, a seriously misunderstood topic. An Estoppel seems to be the next step in a demand for validation which goes unanswered, but not always. But alas, duty calls. With all this in mind let me ask you all this; what do YOU think we need to discuss, regarding validation (as a process), which has not been covered?
Well, I've railed against estoppel as most here know it to exist forever for the simple reason that there is no way that a case dealing with a 25 foot wide strip of roadway leading into Englehart's property which had been fenced off by Gravens against his previous word not to do so could have anything at all to do with bill collectors. On top of that, if you shepardize the case you will find out that no case which ever referred to Englehart had anything at all to do with bill collectors but rather is a somewhat widely used concept in real estate and insurance cases. But not collections or FDCPA. So in my opinon who ever dreamed up the letter had an awfully vivid imagination to say the least to be able to figure out how he could use a doctrine of law in a way which it was not intended to be used. He just figured it might sound good so he grabbed it and flew with it whether it had any legal validity or not. I don't know who the original author was but I sure do have my suspicions and if perchance I happen to be right then doing such things are definitely par for the course for that individual. Be that as it may, lets take a closer look at Estoppel which like a lot of legal doctrines can be likened to a 3 legged table. And if any of the legs are missing the table will fall to the floor. So what are the three legs of Estoppel? They are as follows. In order for the doctrine of estoppel to apply, the party of the first part (the collector) must make some statement or engage in some conduct upon which I have relied and acted upon which later proved to be to my detriment or prejudice. So if we try to put it into the context in which most currently use the estoppel letter then first of all the collector must make some statement or engage in some conduct and the table falls over right there. Why? Because he simply didn't make any statement or engage in any conduct whatever and thats why you sent it to him after you got tired of waiting for the validation you demanded of him at least 30 or more days ago. The second leg of the estoppel table might well be logically present but the third leg is missing in that if he didn't do anything then what did you do that later proved to be to your detriment? If he didn't do anything then you cannot blame him for what he did. Like FDCPA, most such doctrines are meant to be legal shields rather than legal swords. If you are found obviously trying to use them in ways in which they were obviously not intended to be used you are going to lose your case every time. Be that as it may, many of us including this author has seen it work many times over. Why? How then can it work if it isn't supposed to? Well, my explanation for that is that if the collector throws up his hands upon receipt of the estoppel it must have been because he was more ignorant than the person who sent it. It simply caused him to believe that the sender just might know what he is talking about and just might end up sueing him or that the debt wasn't worth argueing about to the collector in the first place. Whatever. But the proper response to the estoppel letter is to just ignore it and go on doing whatever he may have been doing. My experience has been that most of the time that is exactly what they do.
I guess what matters to me is what works. While it is interesting how valid a legal theory is, if I can be technically wrong and still get the results I want I am ecstatic. Bill and others have debated silence by estoppel and apparently both make good points. If we look at the results though, we see it is often successful. After sending the Estoppel letter some CAs will remove the tl. Others will decline to answer the CRA dispute. Lastly, it sets a paper trail that is helpful when suing the CRAs for not complying with FCRA. Just like the Nutcase series, results are not always based on legal theory which often is not clear or changes over time.
Re: Re: --> What Is Validation? OK, I have yet to need the Estoppel letter, but let me ask this. You have a collector on your CR - he does not validate, and he does not delete your TL . Has he not made a statement that is detrimental?
Let all readers please understand that nothing I post here is intended to be argumentive in any way shape or form. I certainly agree with that.
Re: Re: --> What Is Validation? Absolutely! But the operative part is that he has to make a statement or perform some act upon which you relied to your detriment. The Englehart case is very illustrative of that point. Englehart bought a piece of property which had no other access except by "trespass" upon the property of Gravens. So before he bought that piece of property he went to Gravens who gave his word, oral or written (I forget which) and based upon the promise of Gravens Englehart bought the land. He relied upon the promise of Gravens. Some years later, for whatever reason, Gravens put a fence across the right of way, that 25 foot strip of roadway. Now Englehart could not have access to his land. So he sued Gravens using the doctrine of estoppel. Does that help clarify the matter? The difference is that the collector didn't promise you anything but a hard road to go and his derogatory comment on your credit report just backed up his intention. The only thing you could rely on was that he was going to give you as rough a time as he possibly could in order to force you to pay.
Re: Re: --> What Is Validation? Hmm... That might make a great signiture Bill. You're definately losing me there. Where did anyone advocate violating any law? I don't think anyone was talking about using silence by estoppel as a basis for a lawsuit. What I personally was referring to was if the CA failed to act, it could be sent to the CRA as proof that the CRA needs to investigate it again. The only lawsuit that comes into play is if the CA, OC, or CRA directly break either the FCRA or FDCPA. I guess I am just very pragmatic. I have no idea what Congress intended and I doubt Congress does. Bottomline if it works and is legal I think it is a valid strategy. I guess I don't see any difference between that and using the validation/estoppel/CRA dispute/CRA suit for breaking FCRA. Once again if it is legal and works to me it is valid. -
For what it's worth, I just sent a note to Nave and asked him to put this thread in the FAQ. (Any interested casual reader/lurker out there should also check Butch's comments here and Bill's comments here regarding medical validation.) Doc
